According to Sankei Shumbun, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affair has designed a 16-page Detective Conan pamphlet aimed at educating students on foreign affairs.

Source: Manga Pontification

On April 9th, Japanese yaoi publisher Leaf Shuppan posted an official statement on its homepage announcing that it has filed for bankruptcy on the 9th of April.

Icarus Blog has more information on the bankruptcy:

Yuuhi Publishing, described as a "major publisher of BL novels," has fired off its entire staff without warning...

*Yuuhi publishes BL novels under the imprints "Leaf" and "Ai."

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Gemini Jetpack, a manga and anime store located in Waterloo, Ontario, has announced that it will be closing its doors due to various reasons:

First up, is the vastly changed market place. When we started up, over 5 years ago, one of my motivations was that you couldn’t find anime anywhere. None. At least not the good kind anyway. Now, years later, anime seems to be on every network, with specialty anime devoted networks popping up all the time, not to mention Anime On Demand. And that's cool, but hurts business here of course.

Source: The Comic Reporter

According to Moon Phase, Inoue Takehiko's basketball web comic Buzzer Beater will be adapted into an anime. This marks the second time Buzzer Beater is adapted into an anime. The new anime will be aired in July.

The Hearst-backed E Ink, which produces portable, foldable displays that mimic conventional paper, is testing a prototype that could open the technology to e-magazines and e-newspapers. According to the report, the new digital text allows readers to take blogs "off the computer screen and to the beach." Thanks Isaac.

According to Earthtimes, The Bangkok International Book Fair 2007 ordered the removal of adult manga on sale at this year's event after pornographic contents were revealed by Thailand's minister of social development:

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A reminder from Kodansha International Manga Competition's Ceena to manga artists who are interested in submitting their works to Kodansha's International Manga Competition, the deadline of which is less than two months away:

ABOVE US ONLY SKY
There are no boundaries. There is one sky.

The first full-scale international competition for Manga worldwide.
INTERNATIONAL MANGA COMPETITION presented by the manga magazine "Weekly
Morning," Kodansha, Japan.

Submissions are now being accepted in ten languages: English, Spanish,
French, German, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Thai, Italian, and Swedish.
The deadline: May 31 2007.

For more information at www.e-morning.jp/imc/.

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Chapter one of Kazuo Maekawa's Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright) is currently available on Young Jump's website. Gyakuten Saiban is a manga based on Capcom's popular game of the same name. In April, Shueisha moved the manga from Bessatsu Young Magazine (Young Magazine Extra Issue) to Young Magazine.

As a first in all of China, Beijing Chaoyang District's local tax office announced a new manga character to promote the payment of tax. The name of character is Nana.

On April 4th, students from Baijiazhuang, Chaoyang District met with Nana, special manga featuring Nana were also handed out during the event. According to the Chaoyang tax office, Nana was created in order to educate the youth about basic income tax knowledge, and to help establish integrity and a sense of duty as a taxpayers.

After the recent incident in Shenyang, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's Death Note is finding itself in yet more trouble in China. Late last month, Chinese officials have begun confiscating "Death Notes" around a school near Wuhan. According to the director of Wuhan's Publication Bureau, a copy of the confiscated "Death Note" has already been sent to be processed and checked. As soon as the notebook is declared illegal, the authorities will begin taking further actions against "Death Notes" sold around schools.

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